


and now my feet can't touch the bottom of you.

by PansexualDonnaNoble



Category: Doom Patrol (TV)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Screenplay/Script Format, Self Loathing, Sort Of, flex patrol, keeg is larry's friend.. always has been!, maybe THIS is the most niche fic of mine, not sure how to tag this one, okay HEAVY self loathing, platonic larry and keeg but see it however you wanna !, self sacrificing larry trainor, the sacredness and tenderness of having another being living Inside Of You, they are Helping him, they are kinda soulmates ! in a friendship way bro, two people only will read this but i have brain rot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28798440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PansexualDonnaNoble/pseuds/PansexualDonnaNoble
Summary: This is his gift. His final gift. He's lived too long. Not fair of him to drag the spirit down with him any further.It's better this way. The spirit never asked for this either. It deserves a second chance.
Relationships: Keeg Bovo & Larry Trainor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	and now my feet can't touch the bottom of you.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icemachine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icemachine/gifts).



> Larry wanting to give Keeg their freedom was so.... Sad. It's very Larry. But Keeg didn't stay this long for nothing. Good god the pain.

**INT. DOOM MANOR. NIGHT**

  
  


A sullen hush envelops the building. Private. WORN and BRUISED. The violet afters of loss -- a sticky summer of a hero's winnings.

Four windows of silence -- Larry SITS sunken into a chair, bandaged features being betrayed by his body, crestfallen and defeated. Tired -- one of the many stories of his life. Jane has occupied herself, somehow, in the background. Flex sits in another, shell shocked, fogs of grief, waves of confusion -- memory has been traded for a life. As usual -- always the wrong one. Always the wrong ache. The wrong, forgetful shade of success. Dolores… Dolores.

CLIFF paces, unseen daggers spiraling through to cut the ceiling of exhaustion and bittersweetness. He approaches the shirtless man -- Cautious, like men in forests with snakes; or schoolgirls hovering on the doorsteps of temporary love. Blunt, still clueless, still Cliff Steele, putting his metal hand on the back of his chair. Some small, miniscule, edge of comfort.

CLIFF

Hey, um... Flex? I’m really sorry about your wife. I am.

As he continues, Larry rises from his chair, stray wet coughs releasing, like tears once trapped in glass as he walks forward -- 

CLIFF (CONT’D.)

But… our friend the Chief, is in some serious trouble right now...

  
  


\-- CUT TO LARRY, as Cliff continues, his coughs grow, once soft, sporadic, gentle, now rotted, frenzied, deep from the soul. He manages a few steps before falling to his knees, still coughing, coughing like the dying in hospice, children in their beds slumbering through sickness. Fresh, ugly, crimson begins to stain the pristine white of his facial bandages in the center of his mouth. JANE rushes towards him.

JANE (CAREFUL)

Cliff… something’s wrong with Larry!

Only this gets CLIFF to trail off from requesting a grieving man’s help, Jane falls to her knees as Larry finally crumbles down completely to the ground, Cliff lowering a knee in worry.

CLIFF

Larry? Larry?

JANE grabs Larry’s arm, steadying him as best as she can. A small gesture, virtually useless -- but comforting, like hands held in death, her expression perplexed -- concern.

JANE

Jesus! What’s happening?!

LARRY (PANTING, PAINED)

I… I think nature’s finally taking its course. Yeah… I should have died sixty years ago in that plane crash, but the spirit kept me alive…

\--CUT TO their gazes traveling upwards -- a great, brilliant light in the dark gloom of the manor -- the light that always guides the manor. Guides Larry. The BUZZ of static and electricity humming, a generator, the bluest blue, abstract and impossible, floating above -- a watcher. A spirit. 

CLIFF

Well, what are you waiting for?! Get the hell back in there!

For once, the spirit obeys -- Keeg Bovo obeys. Gliding downwards, eager -- hungry, to help Larry Trainor, only they can -- but --

LARRY shoots out a hand -- a stop sign, a warning -- The SPIRIT obeys -- again, halfway towards him. A scene out of an art piece. God and Adam -- no holy touches. Nearly, nearly. They are close enough to…

LARRY (STILL PANTING)

No, no don’t.

The spirit’s insides continue to flicker transparent aqua-white lightning. They stop, almost confused -- But still, once more, listens to Larry Trainor. For now.

Larry gazes up at them. Admiring and weary of clear divinity. Clear scripture. But tired.

LARRY

I’ve been holding you back long enough pal. At least one of us should get to fly high again, right? Now go.

A shoe dropping -- penny falling. Oh, Larry. Beautiful, listless, selfless Larry Trainor. Because even sputtering up angry red and allowing curbed nature its freedom -- he is still Larry. Trainor. (Larry Trainor). To them. To the spirit, even. Allowing what he has always dreamed of. Aspired. Longed for. To take its course. He’s never belonged here. Tainted this earth with his callousness. Mistakes. With his misery. Something he could fix -- if he knew only where the contamination was. Everyone but him had so easily located it. John. Sheryl. The children he left that he protects by being a dead man.

JANE

You’ll die!

Cliff:

You can’t!

LARRY (RESIGNED)

Maybe… we’ll see I guess. I wanted to take that chance so you can have yours…

Still beautiful Larry. Still selfless, tired Larry. Gazing at the spirit, like marble, clean statues of great gods.

Which they were. In their own way.

This is a dying man’s wish. This is A Parting Gift. His gift. His final gift to this world that he poisons. The others only watch shocked.

LARRY

Please… let me do this for you. Go. Go!

This is Larry’s Gift. His repayment. Or final damage upon the world. And the spirit takes it. Crackling, observed and worshipped in awe. They shoot up and glide, flying through the room.

CLIFF

Wait, what?! No!

they fly through the entrance of the room like a chain has broken off. The others uselessly watching them leave. Leave Larry.

It glides through the air, twirling, spinning, a plane barreling in a roll in a perfect ebony night sky. Freedom. This is their freedom. Reborn -- unchained. One accident resolved after sixty long years. Invigorating, cleanliness, washing over their body, like waves crashing upon jagged cliff edges. A glee so prominent, they are sure the sun could soak it up and beam this softness back onto the universe. Freedom. A second chance -- what they have never been given. Water, water off the back. Home. They could go home. Or even somewhere else. Anything. Anywhere, the possibilities are --

Larry is going to die.

It’s clear what his sacrifice has ensured. Without the spirit, without them, Larry Trainor is going to die.

Here the coin spins further on -- the other side of it. A consequence. A consequence of Wanting. If the spirit follows through on rejoicing in their freedom, the result is clear. If they leave him Larry trainor is going to die. 

And what is freedom, if it comes with a body count? The body count of a man that Does Not Deserve to be colleratal damage.

They stare ahead. A pang, so heavy. Once thought of the choice is obvious. The solution. The alternative. Their own sacrifice.

Home. They think. This is not a memory. But a truth.

  
  


Home is the poor, bruised creature fallen to the floor choking up hot, sticky crimson in the manor behind them. Home is not a planet. Once, it was. But things change, as they do, in six decades of complete Closeness. Once, it was the ultimate craving. Now, it is a wound. An ache, like a child’s superficial pain from running to quickly on the ice. Or nostalgia burning backwards from the ground up.

The roadmap of particles and matter and things not yet known to this world that make up the negative spirit -- Keeg Bovo. The Spirit -- is a heavenward hymn of new craving. Devotion. Larger than lust, more maddening than desire -- Larry is dying. The song trickles inside further. They have not spent six decades of picking up puzzle pieces and guiding them to the broken puzzle, searching to be healed by wandering hands, to abandon a Deserving Man now. Like a breadstick to be broken apart and shared on an early morning or hands holding a broken bird until they pass in peace.

They have not spent six decades wrapping the fragments of Larry Trainor up in their fingers and picking them up each time they slip through like sand, clenching him gently in their hand, to provide shelter, security, to allow themself one act of selfishness now.

A planet once called home cannot compare to the gospel and glory that sits inside of Larry Trainor lying within. A long ache. And in the ruins of a dull throb Keeg had irrevocably built and sown another. Home. One that will never know nor appreciate the hammer and nails that went into the construction to keep it from falling down. Who would much rather be demolished. But this thankless work does not phase them. Does not injure them, because: they have larry.

  
  


They cannot abandon him. Not after such an attempt at selflessness.

The SPIRIT changes course, flying backwards into the manor.

INSIDE, Larry has curled further into himself, coughing worsening as by all accounts, he prepares to die in peace yes, for once --  Larry has peace.  This is peace. Thank God. It’s peaceful. He has this one thing. One thing. That is his.

THEN CUT TO -- The SPIRIT -- KEEG, zooming through, a bat from hell, a smoke signal of Owing. Through the halls and into the room.

LARRY doesn’t see them -- But KEEG always has. Of course they have. Consequently -- they are compelled to Do The Right Thing.

Jane and Cliff jolt out the way as the spirit shoots through, shoots back into LARRY. Sacrifice repaid with more sacrifice. Someone is never going to stop owing.  But this is what he deserves.

Blue disappears and fades into him. Larry’s body JOLTS, spasms, energy colliding. New life. Second chance. Something he has never had either.  Whether he wants it or not. 

  
  
  


\--  **END OF SCENE.**


End file.
